Summer Sewing Challenge Yellow Polka Dottie Dress

Description

I had two yards of 60" wide cotton yellow polka dot fabric in my stash for the longest time and didn’t know what to do with it until I saw this pattern, the Halter Dress #116.

I modified the original skirt pattern so that when laid flat, the pleats fold flat to meet. The original pattern has it so that the underlayer is exposed, the pleats meet at the waist but open to a “V” at the hem. I omitted the halter and had to supplement the lining with another fabric because I could barely fit this dress into two yards.

The belt is a souvenir I gave her on my trip to Ecuador. It worked well with the dress.

I lined the dress with white cotton…and I used featherweight boning for extra structure…Both are horrible mistakes. First, the cotton lining sticks to the yellow fabric and doesn’t really give the dress any bounce at all. Second, I should I have read reviews for featherweight boning… After one wear, there are kinks right underneath the bust and there is nothing I could do to fix it but to take it apart and use spiral steel boning, which I should have done in the first place, had I done my research and read the reviews.

A note about the “model,” she’s my illustrious sister, Tu. She loves dressing up and loves the dress. She’s an Asian blond, Vietnamese to be exact :) I’m the brunette standing right next to her.

Material Notes

Fashion fabric and lining are cotton.
Featherweight boning for the bodice. Note to self: Don’t ever use it again in the future.
There’s a grossgrain ribbon inside the bodice, for decoration purposes only. It was supposed to be a waist stay but after all of that boning, the dress didn’t need it.
Standard nylon coil zipper, in yellow. I handpicked it.

This dress has many firsts for me. First time lining a dress, add boning and handpicking the zipper. Overall, I am quite happy with the outcome of this project!

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